In the field of telecommunications, a conference call is a meeting between two or more people. Conference calls are a low-cost alternative for allowing a group of people to communicate with one another in a single place at a single time. But how does a person schedule a conference call?
A person can schedule a conference call by contacting a teleconferencing manager that is equipped with one or more teleconferencing bridges. This person contacting the teleconferencing manager to schedule a conference call is referred to as a host. By contacting the teleconferencing manager, the host is able to setup a conference call for a specific date and time on a teleconferencing bridge.
A teleconferencing bridge may have several conference calls scheduled for a specific day. For instance, a first conference call is scheduled from Noon to 1 p.m. and a second conference call is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the same day. But what happens when a person tries to connect to the teleconferencing bridge ahead-of-time or prior to the host connecting to the teleconferencing bridge?
Often, when a conference call is still in progress, many people that are scheduled to participate in a subsequent conference call try to connect to the teleconferencing bridge ahead-of-time or prior to the host connecting to the teleconferencing bridge. In this situation, instead of allowing them to begin their meeting earlier than scheduled, these people are put-on-hold until the conference call is complete or until the host connects to the teleconferencing bridge. By being on-hold, valuable time is wasted and productivity is decreased.
In another situation, when the same conference call ID and participant code are used to access two conference calls that are scheduled back-to-back (i.e., a first conference call is scheduled from Noon to 1 p.m. and a second conference call is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the same day), people that are scheduled to participate in the second conference call are able to join the first conference call prior to the first conference call being complete. This occurs because the conference call ID and participant code for the first conference call are reused and assigned to the second conference call. In this situation, by reusing the same conference call ID and participant code for accessing the first conference call and the second conference call, confidentiality and privacy rights of the first conference call are violated.